Dr. Schulz walks over. “Considering your condition, we think it’s best to wait on the details until your brain has more time to heal and the memories come back naturally. What you need to concentrate on now is resting and recovering. Everything else will come in time. I’ve been told we were finally able to get in touch with your sister, who’s flying in tomorrow. I’m sure seeing a loved one will stimulate your memory. Let’s all touch base again then.”
“Seriously?” I make eye contact with all three of them. “Nobody is going to tell me squat about anything?” I’m met with steadfast stares. “Jesus, can someone at least remove the cath and the leads so I can take a piss by myself?”
“I’ll send a nurse in,” Dr. Simms says. “If you can stand without falling, I’ll allow the removal of the catheter. But after you relieve yourself, we’ll continue monitoring your vitals. Your ventricular drain will have to be clamped temporarily so you can move about, but you’ll have to be extremely careful not to disturb it in any way.” She looks at me pointedly. “Do you understand?”
“I get it. I have a thin intraventricular catheter inserted in my brain to monitor and manage the cerebrospinal fluid pressure. It cannot be dislodged, wiggled, or tapped. Can we get on with it?”
The three of them share more confused looks. I don’t know what the helltheyhave to be confused about whenI’mthe one with all the unanswered questions.
A few minutes after they leave, a nurse comes in and untethers me from everything keeping me a prisoner in the bed. He helps me stand, and when I don’t fall over, he guides meacross the room to the bathroom with minimal support. He must be pleased, because he lets me enter the bathroom by myself.
“I’ll be right out here,” he says. “Just call out if you need anything.”
When I get my first look in the mirror, my jaw drops. My face is swollen.Damn… even after several weeks? Bruises have faded to a sickly green color. There are a few stitches in my lower lip. Another row of them is up near my hairline. I lift my hospital gown and appraise my torso where four more sets of sutures are scattered along my left side.
I concentrate back on my face and work hard to open my damaged eye. I can just barely open it enough to allow both my eyes to focus on the person in the mirror—the man who might as well be a complete fucking stranger.
Chapter Four
Ava
My whole body is numb, and it’s not because of the cold weather.
Staring at his closed casket as it hovers over the hole that will become his eternal resting place, the one thing that bothers me the most is that I never got to see him. His body—I cringe when I even think of it—wasn’t ‘fit for viewing’ as the two uniformed officers, aka military widow babysitters, told me last week.
Over the past weeks I’ve come to despise those two men, the casualty assistance officers who first told me of Trevor’s death, and then later, revealed the details.
They never tell you right away how your loved one died. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because it happened so far away and they don’t actually know. Or maybe it’s because they have to figure out what they’re allowed to say. It is the military after all. And he did lose his life in a combat zone.
Tears roll down my face as the still-fresh memory of being told how my love, my soulmate, died races through my mind. He was over there for years, giving a large chunk of his life to the military. And then, just when he was on the precipice of cominghome—to me, our life, our future—it all gets ripped away from him.
From us.
What’s worse is knowing that his last moments on this earth were probably spent in sheer terror. From what I’ve been told, Trevor and his team were sent in to help two injured soldiers when they were all captured by insurgents. Was he hurt? Tortured? The not knowing is killing me. The only solace is they were found less than eight hours after they’d left base, meaning if they had been hurt, it wasn’t for long. They escaped, found a vehicle and raced away, only to be exploded to bits by an IED.
I cry out again as what I imagine happened to him plays out like a movie in my head. I hope it was quick and he didn’t know what was happening. I pray he didn’t have time to think of me and this life we wouldn’t have. The kids we’d never bring into the world. The brilliant surgeon he’d never become.
Two arms wrap around me from either side. One belongs to Maddie, the other to Regan. Chuck, Trevor’s dad, leans across Maddie and gives my knee a gentle squeeze. He and Dawn, Trev’s mom, flew up from their winter home in Arizona the day we got the news and have been here ever since. Helping me, grieving with me, maybe even feeling dead inside like me.
Now that their only son is gone, will they even have a reason to come back to Cal Creek anymore? Will they sell the house Trevor grew up in and cut their ties with the place that holds so many painful memories? If so, I fear I may lose the only connection to the man I loved. And even though they are here by my side, a dreaded pang of loneliness stabs at my heart at the thought of losing the two people who are like parents to me.
Maybe that would be for the best, I think, as Dawn quietly sobs. Seeing them would only be an unbearable reminder of what I’ve lost.
One survivor.
I close my eyes, recalling what the men I hate told me.
One. Out of six men.
I know I’m being selfish to wonder why the one wasn’t my Trevor. Why it was some lieutenant who wasn’t even married. He isn’t a doctor who could go on to save thousands of lives over his lifetime. He doesn’t have children like two of the other soldiers who died. Why him when so many of the others had so much more to live for?
I barely register the words being said by Reverend Jenkins standing near the head of the casket. I’m so lost in my own thoughts of a future that will never happen. A past that may eventually be forgotten. A present I don’t want to be living in.
I refused most of the typical military funeral things like the bugle call and the gun salute.Especiallythe gun salute. I didn’t need to be reminded that my love died in such a barbaric way. But I capitulated on the presenting of the flag. However, as the officers fold the flag then approach, I realize I don’t want anything from the two men who delivered me the worst news of my life. I shake my head and the men end up giving it to Dawn.
It’s done. It’s over. We’re free to go. Go where, I’ve no idea. Because thereisnowhere to go without him.
I inhale a shaky breath, blow it out, and stand.
